Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Professor of Geography, UNC-CH
Faculty, Institute for the Study of the Americas, UNC-CH
GSC Advisory Board, Member
Dr. Riveros-Iregui’s research foci include watershed science, forest and soil processes, ecosystem ecology, and human-water-environment interactions. Before coming to Carolina in 2013, he worked as a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Colorado (2008-2010) and as an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska (2010-2013). His field studies include subalpine forests of the Rocky Mountains of Montana and Colorado, agricultural landscapes of Nebraska and Iowa, and highly impacted sites of the Andes Mountains of Colombia and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.
He teaches courses on hydrology, watershed science, environmental systems, and field methods in physical geography. He regularly teaches a field course on Tropical Ecohydrology to UNC students who travel with him to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. In total, he has taken 34 UNC undergraduates to Ecuador with support from UNC’s Study Abroad Office and the Center for Galapagos Studies for a three-week course. The course focuses on the hydrologic cycle and the interactions and feedbacks between hydrological and ecological processes, with an emphasis on the sustainability of freshwater resources. In addition, 3 of those students have returned to Ecuador to conduct their own research projects under my supervision. He has received numerous awards, including the J. Carlyle Sitterson Award for Teaching First-Year Students, and the National Science Foundation Early Career Award.
Research Projects
- Water Cycling and Critical Zone Processes in the Tropics: The Galápagos as a Natural Laboratory
- Evaluating lithium (Li) isotopes to understand critical zone development in tropical islands: a systematic assessment on San Cristobal Island, Galapagos
Publications
- Schmitt, S.R., Riveros-Iregui, D.A., and Hu, J. (2018). The role of fog, orography and seasonality on precipitation in a semi-arid, tropical island. Hydrological Processes, 32, 2792-2805.
- Hu, J., and Riveros-Iregui, D.A., (2016). Life in the clouds: Are tropical montane cloud forests responding to changes in climate? Oecologia 180:1061-1073..
- Percy, M.S., Schmitt, S.R., Riveros-Iregui, D.A., and Mirus, B.B. (2016). The Galápagos Archipelago: A natural laboratory to examine sharp hydroclimatic, geologic and anthropogenic gradients. WIREs Water 3: 587-600..